appears to the naked eye. Conversing with the Chikkàsah archi-magus, or
high-priest, about that luminary, he told me, “it might possibly be as
broad and round as his winter-house; but he thought it could not well
exceed it.” We cannot be surprised at the stupidity of the Americans in
this respect, when we consider the gross ignorance which now prevails
among the general part of the Jews, not only of the whole system of
nature, but of the essential meaning of their own religious ceremonies,
received from the Divine Majesty. {19} —And also when we reflect, that
the very learned, and most polite of the ancient Romans, believed (not
by any new-invented mythology of their own) that the sun was drawn round
the earth in a chariot. Their philosophic system was not very dissimilar
to that of the wild Americans; for Cicero tells us, Epicurus thought the
sun to be less than it appeared to the eye. And Lucretius says,
_Tantillus ille sol_, “a diminutive thing.” And, if the Israelites had
not at one time thought the sun a portable god, they would not have
thought of a chariot for it. This they derived from the neighbouring
heathen; for we are told, that they had an house of the sun, where they
danced in honour of him, in circuits, and had consecrated spherical
figures; and that they, likewise, built a temple to it; for “they
purified and sanctified themselves in the gardens, behind the house, or
temple of Achad.” In _Isa._ xvii. 8, we find they had _sun-images_,
which the Hebrews called _chummanim_, made to represent the sun, or for
the honour and worship of it: and the Egyptians met yearly to worship in
the temple of Beth-Shemesh, a house dedicated to the sun. Most part of
the old heathens adored all the celestial orbs, especially the sun;
probably they first imagined its enlivening rays immediately issued from
the holy fire, light, and spirit, who either resided in, or was the
identical sun. That idolatrous ceremony of the Jews, Josiah utterly
abolished about 640 years before our Christian æra. The sacred text
says, “He took away the horses, which the kings of Judah had given to
the sun, and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.” At Rhodes, a
neighbouring island to Judæa, they consecrated chariots to the sun, on
account of his glorious splendour and benign qualities. Macrobius tells
us, that the Assyrians worshipped Adad, or Achad, an idol of the sun;
and Strabo acquaints us, the Arabians paid divine homage to the sun, &c.
But the Indian Americans pay only a civil regard to the sun: and the
more intelligent sort of them believe, that all the luminaries of the
heavens are moved by the strong fixt laws of the great Author of nature.
In 2 _Kings_ xvii. 30, we read that the men of Babylon built
Succoth-Benoth, “tents for young women;” having consecrated a temple to
Venus, they fixed tents round it, where young women prostituted
themselves in honour of the goddess. Herodotus, and other authors, are
also sufficient witnesses on this point. Now, were the Americans
originally heathens, or not of Israel, when they wandered there from
captivity, in quest of {20} liberty, or on any other accidental account,
that vicious precedent was so well calculated for America, where every
place was a thick arbour, it is very improbable they should have
discontinued it: But they are the very reverse. To commit such acts of
pollution, while they are performing any of their religious ceremonies,
is deemed so provoking an impiety, as to occasion even the supposed
sinner to be excluded from all religious communion with the rest of the
people. Or even was a man known to have gone in to his own wife, during
the time of their fastings, purifications, &c. he would also be
separated from them. There is this wide difference between the impure
and obscene religious ceremonies of the ancient heathens, and the yet
penal, and strict purity of the natives of America.
The heathens chose such gods, as were most suitable to their
inclinations, and the situation of their country. The warlike Greeks and
Romans worshipped _Mars_ the god of war; and the savage and more bloody
Scythians deified the _Sword_. The neighbouring heathens round Judæa,
each built a temple to the supposed god that presided over their land.
_Rimmon_, was the Syrian god of pomegranates: and the Philistines,
likewise, erected a temple to _Dagon_, who had first taught them the use
of wheat; which the Greeks and Romans changed into _Ceres_, the goddess
of corn, from the Hebrew, _Geres_, which signifies grain. But the red
Americans firmly believe, that their war-captains, and their reputed
prophets, gain success over their enemies, and bring on seasonable
rains, by the immediate reflection of the divine fire, co-operating with
them.
We are informed by Cicero, that the maritime Sidonians adored _fishes_:
and by the fragment of Sanchoniathon, that the Tyrians worshipped the
element of _fire_, and the _ærial wind_, as gods:—probably having
forgotten that the first and last names of the three celestial cherubic
emblems, only typified the deity. Ancient history informs us, that
Zoroaster, who lived An. M. 3480, made _light_ the emblem of good, and
_darkness_ the symbol of evil—he taught an abhorrence of images, and
instructed his pupils to worship God, under the figurative likeness of
_fire_: but he asserted two contrary original principles; the one of
good, and the other of evil. He allowed no temples, but enjoined
sacrificing in the open air, and on the top of an hill. The ancient
Persians kept up their reputed holy fire, without suffering it to be
extinguished; which their pretended successors observe with the {21}
strictest devotion, and affirm it has been burning, without the least
intermission, several thousand years. But the Indian Americans are so
far from the idolatry of the Sidonians, that they esteem fish only as
they are useful to the support of human life; though one of their tribes
is called the _fish_:—they are so far from paying any religious worship
to the aerial wind, like the Tyrians, that they often call the bleak
northwind, explicatively, very evil, and accursed; which they probably,
would not say, if they derived the great esteem they now have for the
divine fire, from the aforesaid idolatrous nations: neither would they
wilfully extinguish their old fire, before the annual sacrifice is
offered up, if, like the former heathens, they paid religious worship to
the elementary fire; for no society of people would kill their own gods,
unless the papists, who go farther, even to eat him. The Indians esteem
the old year’s fire, as a most dangerous pollution, regarding only the
supposed holy fire, which the archi-magus annually renews for the
people.
They pay no religious worship to stocks, or stones, after the manner of
the old eastern pagans; neither do they worship any kind of images
whatsoever.[16] And it deserves our notice, in a very particular manner,
to invalidate the idle dreams of the jesuitical fry of South-America,
that none of all the various nations, from Hudson’s Bay to the
Missisippi, has ever been known, by our trading people, to attempt to
make any image of the great Divine Being, whom they worship. This is
consonant to the Jewish observance of the second commandment, and
directly contrary to the usage of all the ancient heathen world, who
made corporeal representations of their deities—and their conduct, is a
reproach to many reputed Christian temples, which are littered round
with a crowd of ridiculous figures to represent God, spurious angels,
pretended saints, and notable villains.
The sacred penmen, and prophane writers, assure us that the ancient
heathens had lascivious gods, particularly מפלצת, 2 _Chron._ xv. 16,
which was the abominable Priapus. But I never heard that any of our
North-American Indians had images of any kind. There is a carved human
statue of wood, to which, however, they pay no religious homage: It
belongs to the head war-town of the upper Muskohge country, and seems to
have been originally designed to perpetuate the memory of some
distinguished hero, who deserved well of his country; for, when their
_cusseena_, or bitter, black drink[17] is about to {22} be drank in the
synedrion, they frequently, on common occasions, will bring it there,
and honour it with the first conch-shell-full, by the hand of the chief
religious attendant: and then they return it to its former place. It is
observable, that the same beloved waiter, or holy attendant, and his
co-adjutant, equally observe the same ceremony to every person of
reputed merit, in that quadrangular place. When I past that way,
circumstances did not allow me to view this singular figure; but I am
assured by several of the traders, who have frequently seen it, that the
carving is modest, and very neatly finished, not unworthy of a modern
civilized artist. As no body of people we are acquainted with, have, in
general, so great a share of strong natural parts as those savages, we
may with a great deal of probability suppose, that their tradition of
the second commandment, prevented them from having one, not to say the
same plentiful variety of images, or idols, as have the popish
countries.
Notwithstanding they are all degenerating apace, on account of their
great intercourse with foreigners, and other concurring causes; I well
remember, that, in the year 1746, one of the upper towns of the
aforesaid Muskohge, was so exceedingly exasperated against some of our
Chikkasah traders, for having, when in their cups, forcibly viewed the
nakedness of one of their women, (who was reputed to be an
hermaphrodite) that they were on the point of putting them to death,
according to one of their old laws against crimes of that kind.—But
several of us, assisted by some of the Koosah town, rescued them from
their just demerit. Connecting together these particulars, we can
scarcely desire a stronger proof, that they have not been idolaters,
since they first came to America; much less, that they erected, and
worshipped any such lascivious and obscene idols, as the heathens above
recited.
The Sidonians and Philistines worshipped Ashtaroth, in the figure of the
_celestial luminaries_; or, according to others, in the form of a
_sheep_: but the Americans pay the former, only, a civil regard, because
of the beneficial influence with which the deity hath impressed them.
And they reckon _sheep_ as despicable and helpless, and apply the name
to persons in that predicament, although a ram was the animal emblem of
power, with the ancient eastern heathens. The Indians sometimes call a
nasty fellow, _Chookphe_ {23} _kussooma_, “a stinking sheep,” and “a
goat.” And yet a goat was one of the Egyptian deities; as likewise were
all the creatures that bore wool; on which account, the sacred writers
frequently term idols, “the hairy.” The despicable idea which the
Indians affix to the species, shews they neither use it as a divine
symbol, nor have a desire of being named Dorcas, which, with the
Hebrews, is a proper name, expressive of a wild she goat. I shall
subjoin here, with regard to Ashtaroth, or Astarte, that though the
ancients believed their deities to be immortal, yet they made to
themselves both male and female gods, and, by that means, Astarte, and
others, are of the fæminine gender. Trismegistus too, and the Platonics,
affirmed there was deus masculo-fæmineus; though different sexes were
needful for the procreation of human beings.
Instead of consulting such as the heathen oracles—or the Teraphim—the
Dii Penates—or Dii Lares, of the ancients, concerning future
contingencies, the Indians only pretend to divine from their dreams;
which may proceed from the tradition they still retain of the knowledge
their ancestors obtained from heaven, in visions of the night, _Job_
xxxiii. “God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a
dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in
slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth
their instruction.” When we consider how well stocked with gods, all the
neighbouring nations of Judæa were; especially the maritime powers, such
as Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Egypt, which continually brought home
foreign gods, and entered them into their own Palladia; and that these
Americans are utterly ignorant both of the gods and their worship, it
proves, with sufficient evidence, that the gentlemen, who trace them
from either of those states, only perplex themselves in wild theory,
without entering into the merits of the question.
As the _bull_ was the first terrestrial _cherubic emblem_, denoting
fire, the ancient Egyptians, in length of time, worshipped Apis,
Serapis, or Osiris, under the form of an ox; but, when he grew old, they
drowned him, and lamented his death in a mourning habit; which
occasioned a philosopher thus to jest them, _Si Dii sunt, cur plangitis?
Si mortui, cur adoratis?_ “If they be gods, why do you weep for them?
And, if they are dead, why do you worship them?” A bull, ox, cow, or
calf, was the favourite deity of {24} the ancient idolaters. Even when
YOHEWAH was conducting Israel in the wilderness, Aaron was forced to
allow them a golden calf, according to the usage of the Egyptians: and
at the defection of the ten tribes, they worshipped before the
emblematical images of two calves, through the policy of Jeroboam. The
Troglodites used to strangle their aged, with a cow’s tail: and some of
the East-Indians are said to fancy they shall be happy, by holding a
cow’s tail in their hand when dying: others imagine the Ganges to wash
away all their crimes and pollution. The Indian Americans, on the
contrary, though they derive the name of cattle from part of the divine
essential name, (as shall be elsewhere observed) and use the name of a
buffalo as a war appellative, and the name of a tribe; yet their regard
to them, centres only in their usefulness for the support of human life:
and they believe they can perform their religious ablutions and
purifications, in any deep clean water.
The superstitious heathens, whom the Hebrews called, _Yedonim_,
pretended that the bones of those they worshipped as gods when alive,
revealed both present and future things, that were otherwise concealed:
and the hieroglyphics, the priestly legible images, which the Egyptians
inscribed on the tombs of the deceased, to praise their living virtue,
and incite youth to imitate them, proved a great means of inducing them
in process of time to worship their dead. But the Americans praise only
the virtues of their dead, as fit copies of imitation for the living.
They firmly believe that the hand of God cuts off the days of their dead
friend, by his pre-determined purpose. They are so far from deifying
fellow-creatures, that they prefer none of their own people, only
according to the general standard of reputed merit.
The Chinese, likewise, though they call God by the appellative, _Cham
Ti_, and have their temples of a quadrangular form, yet they are gross
idolaters; like the ancient Egyptians, instead of offering up religious
oblations to the great Creator and Preserver of the universe, they pay
them to the pictures of their deceased ancestors, and erect temples to
them, in solitary places without their cities—likewise to the sun, moon,
planets, spirits, and inventors of arts; especially to the great
Confucius, notwithstanding he strictly prohibited the like idolatrous
rites. And the religious modes of the ancient inhabitants {25} of
Niphon, or the Japanese, are nearly the same; which are diametrically
opposite to the religious tenets of the wild Americans.
The diviners among the Philistines pretended to foretel things, by the
flying, chirping, and feeding of wild fowls. The Greeks and Romans
called fowls, Nuncii Deorum. And Calchas is said to have foretold to
Agamemnon, by the number of sparrows which flew before him, how many
years the Trojan war should last. The Assyrians worshipped pigeons, and
bore the figure of them on their standards, as the sacred oracles shew
us, where the anger of the pigeon, and the sword of the pigeon, points
at the destroying sword of the Assyrians. But, though the American woods
swarm with a surprizing variety of beautiful wild fowl, yet the natives
do not make the least pretension to auguries. They know it is by a
certain gift or instinct, inferior to human reason, that the birds have
a sufficient knowledge of the seasons of the year. I once indeed
observed them to be intimidated at the voice of a small uncommon bird,
when it pitched, and chirped on a tree over their war camp. But that is
the only trace of such superstition, as I can recollect among them.
Instead of calling birds the messengers of the gods, they call the great
eagle, _Ooōle_; which seems to be an imitation of _Eloha_.—This may be
accounted for, from the eagle being one of the cherubic emblems,
denoting the air, or spirit. They esteem pigeons only as they are
salutary food, and they kill the turtledove, though they apply it as a
proper name to their female children.
The Babylonians were much addicted to auguries: and they believed them
to be unerring oracles, and able to direct them in doubtful and arduous
things, _Ezek._ xxi. 21. Those auguries always directed their conduct,
in every material thing they undertook; such as the beginning and
carrying on war, going a journey, marriage, and the like. But, as we
shall soon see, the Americans, when they go to war, prepare and sanctify
themselves, only by fasting and ablutions, that they may not defile
their supposed holy ark, and thereby incur the resentment of the Deity.
And many of them firmly believe, that marriages are made above. If the
Indian Americans were descended from any of the states or people above
mentioned, they could not well have forgotten, much less could they have
so essentially departed from their idolatrous worship. It is hence
probable, they came here, {26} soon after the captivity, when the
religion of the Hebrew nation, respecting the worship of Deity, was in
its purity. And if any of the ancient heathens came with them, they
became proselytes of habitation, or justice—hereby, their heathenish
rites and ceremonies were, in process of time, intirely absorbed in the
religious ceremonies of the Jews.
Had the nine tribes and half of Israel which were carried off by
Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, and settled in Media, continued there
long, it is very probable, that by intermarrying with the natives, and
from their natural fickleness and proneness to idolatry, and the force
of example, they would have adopted, and bowed before the gods of the
Medes and the Assyrians, and carried them along with them. But there is
not a trace of this idolatry among the Indians. The severe afflictions
they underwent in captivity, doubtless humbled their hearts, and
reclaimed them from the service of the calves, and of Baalam, to the
true divine worship—a glimpse of which they still retain. And that the
first settlers came to America before the destruction of the first
temple, may be inferred, as it is certain both from Philo and Josephus,
that the second temple had no cherubim. To reflect yet greater light on
the subject, I shall here add a few observations on the Indians supposed
religious cherubic emblems, the cherubimical names of their tribes, and
from whence they, and the early heathens, may be supposed to have
derived them.
When the goodness of Deity induced him to promise a saviour to fallen
man, in paradise, he stationed flaming _cherubim_ in the garden. The
type I shall leave; but when mankind became intirely corrupt, God
renewed his promise to the Israelites, and to convey to posterity the
true divine worship, ordered them to fix in the tabernacle, and in
Solomon’s temple, _cherubim_, over the mercy-seat,—the very curtains
which lined the walls, and the veil of the temple, likewise, were to
have those figures. The cherubim are said to represent the names and
offices of _Yehowah Elohim_, in redeeming lost mankind. The word כרבים,
is drawn from כ, a note of resemblance, and רב, a great or mighty one;
_i. e._ the “similitude of the great and mighty One,” whose emblems were
the bull, the lion, the man, and the eagle. The prophet Ezekiel has
given us two draughts of the cherubim (certainly not without an
instructive design) in his two visions, described in the first {27} and
tenth chapters. In chap. x. ver. 20, he assures us that “he knew they
were the cherubim.” They were uniform, and had those four compounded
animal emblems; “Every one had four faces—פגים,” appearances, habits, or
forms; which passage is illustrated by the similar divine emblems on the
four principal standards of Israel. The standard of Judah bore the image
of a _lion_; Ephraim’s had the likeness of a _bull_; Reuben’s had the
figure of a _man’s_ head; and Dan’s carried the picture of an _eagle_,
with a serpent in his talons[VI]: Each of the cherubim, according to the
prophet, had the head and face of a man—the likeness of an eagle, about
the shoulders, with expanded wings; their necks, manes, and breasts,
resembled those of a lion; and their feet those of a bull, or calf. “The
sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot.” One would
conclude, from Ezekiel’s visions, and _Psal._ xviii. 10.—_Ps._ xcix. 1.
“He rode upon a cherub, and did fly:”—“The Lord reigneth, let the people
tremble: he sitteth between the cherubim, let the earth be moved,”—that
Elohim chose the cherubic emblems, in condescension to man, to display
his transcendent glorious title of King of kings. We view him seated in
his triumphal chariot, and as in the midst of a formidable war camp,
drawn by those four creatures, the bull, the lion, the man, and the
eagle; strong and descriptive emblems of the divine essence. What animal
is equal to the _bull_, or ox, for strength, indefatigable service, and
also for food? In eastern countries, they were always used to plough,
and beat out the grain, besides other services omitted in modern times;
the _lion_ excels every other animal in courage, force, and prowess:
_man_ far surpasses all other creatures, in understanding, judgment, and
wisdom; and there is no bird so sagacious, or can fly so swift, or soar
so high as the eagle, or that bears so intense a love to its young ones.
Footnote VI:
The MAN, which the lion on the standard of Judah, and the head on
Reuben’s, typified, was, in the fulness of time, united to the divine
essence.
These are the emblems of the _terrestrial cherubim_: and the Psalmist
calls them Merabha Hashekina, “The chariot of Divine Majesty:” “God
sitteth between, and rideth upon, the cherubim,” or divine chariot. The
_celestial cherubim_ were _fire_, _light_, and _air_, or spirit, which
were typified by the _bull_, the _lion_, and the _eagle_. Those divine
emblems, in a long revolution of time, {28} induced the ancients by
degrees, to divide them, and make images of the divine persons, powers,
and actions, which they typified, and to esteem them gods. They
consecrated the bull’s head to the fire, the lion’s to light, and the
eagle’s to the air, which they worshipped as gods. And, in proportion as
they lost the knowledge of the emblems, they multiplied and compounded
their heads with those of different creatures. The Egyptians commonly
put the head of a lion, hawk, or eagle, and sometimes that of a ram, or
bull, to their images; some of which resembled the human body. Their
Apis, or Osiris, gave rise to Aaron’s, and apostate Israel’s, golden
calf: and their sphynx had three heads. Diana of Ephesus was triformis;
Janus of Rome, biformis, and, sometimes, quadriformis; and Jupiter, Sol,
Mercury, Proserpine, and Cerberus, were triple-headed.
Hesiod tells us, the ancient heathens had no less than thirty thousand
_gods_. It is well known that the ancient heathens, especially the
Greeks and Romans, abounded with male and female deities; and commonly
in human effigy. As they imagined they could not safely trust themselves
to the care of any one god, they therefore chose a multiplicity. They
multiplied and changed them from childhood to old age. The Romans
proceeded so far, as to make Cloacina the guardian goddess of each
house-of-office. The heathens in general, appointed one god to preside
over the land, and another over the water; one for the mountains, and
another for the valleys. And they were so diffident of the power of
their gods, that they chose a god, or goddess, for each part of the
body; contrary to the religious system of their best poets and
philosophers, and that of the present savage Americans: the former
affirmed, _sapiens dominabitur astris_, &c.; “A wife, good man, will
always be ruled by divine reason; and not pretend to be drawn to this or
that, by an over-bearing power of the stars, or fortune:” and the latter
assert, “that temporal good or evil is the necessary effect of their own
conduct; and that the Deity presides over life and death.”